Blogfromthebarn

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

A weekend in Munich

My beloved brother, has now moved to Munich in lovely Bavaria and since he was unable to join us for Christmas we decided to him pay a pre-Yule visit, catch up on family stuff and allow Mrs S to indulge in a little desperately needed last minute shopping for pointless tat.

Accompanied by one of my lovely sisters and her long suffering hubby we set off to the place where a BMW is a thing to make rather than something which shouldn't be allowed out of a junction as it's probably driven by some annoying slimy rep with a tiny willy.

Our hotel, the Bayerpost was simply stunning and the all-glass bathrooms sliding glass doors, see through toilet, powered blinds and groovy lighting provided literally minutes of fun for me before Mrs S insisted that I "put your clothes back on and stop acting like a 5 year old". A pleasant meal, (an hour or two late thanks to BA) was followed by a delightful nights sleep.

The Christmas markets - how can one describe the delights on offer, basically there seemed to be three types of offering, horrible candles, incredibly sugary confectionery and 'traditional Christmas ornaments' made from "the stuff that's left when we've finished making something useful out of wood" (that may not be an exact translation from the German but I reckon it's pretty close).

What delights did Mrs Stuffy acquire? A comprehensive list would be too dispiriting but I must share with you the horrible candles, a wood-elf made out of things you would find sweeping the drive, a small deer made out of dried fewmets, a sparkly ceramic Saint Nicholas, an £85 pound Weihnachten Pyramide made out of things found whilst sweeping out the garage, an xmas tree made out of stale dough, dry fruit, grass clippings and string, (which was quite delightful and smelled really interesting after a couple of days hanging on our front door in the seasonal Christmas drizzle.)

Despite these distractions our break seemed to pass much too quickly and it seemed a shame to head off to the airport on Sunday for the flight home. BA, in their compassion, obviously also felt that we hadn't spent long enough in Germany, as we reversed back from the stand, (only and hour or two late) one of the engines fell off and the captain announced that he was off to the bar and that the couple of young ladies employed by BA in Munich to stick tickets on baggage would be only to happy to facilitate our onward journey.

Astonishingly the poor wee BA frauleins seemed to find squeezing the 200 or so grumpy passengers into the 25 remaining seats on the two remaining already severely delayed flights a bit of a logistical challenge. Luckily their manager, who for the sake of legal deniability we'll call Reg eased the entire 5 hour ordeal for all of us by hiding in his office only occasionally emerging to lie to us (admittedly this was under duress, it was apparent that he'd rather not have spoken with us at all).

I do think the British are astoundingly pleasant in such circumstances, there is no doubt that were this a group from many another nation they'd have decided that Reg needed to be lynched, or at least tarred and feathered, and acted upon that decision.
We travelling Brits however subjected him to some serious tutting, and quite a lot of arm folding and eyebrow raising.

Three hours of queuing did provide an opportunity to chat with the (still touring) bass guitarist for Wishbone Ash, Bob Skeat, a really nice chap, who was unlucky enough to get a BA flight out on the 7pm plane and would therefore have been back in Heathrow by 02:30 the following morning.

The rest of us enjoyed an enforced night in the Kempinski and an appalling buffet supper followed by a very efficient Lufthansa flight home in the wee hours of the next morning.

Lessons learned:-

BA = not impressive.
Wishbone Ash = still rocking and rolling.
Christmas Markets = fun and very useful if you need a new battle-axe, some stunning gluwein, or decorations made from garden waste.
Christmas = a time when (if you're lucky, and I am,) you appreciate family.
Munich = pretty city, really nice place.
BA = really not impressive at all.

glückliches Weihnachten zu allen meinen Lesern...